No one knows how expensive video games should be

Posted on August 18, 2017

“Who wants to Play video games” by JD Hancock released under CC Attribution license

No one knows how expensive video games should be, and this is becoming a very real problem for the industry. A lot of companies are still selling video games at prices that are just too high. They’re losing money as a result, since fans are well aware of the fact that they don’t have to spend this kind of money on video games these days. This situation is making things complicated for the industry.

For one thing, across many different industries, companies will try to get a sense of the industry pricing standard for certain goods and services. This will help to serve as a guide for how much they should be spending and when. However, if there really is no industry standard or if it is shifting constantly, this can make things significantly harder for almost everyone involved. Video games range widely in price now, and many of them are essentially free. This means that many companies are in an increasingly difficult position.

Obviously, video game companies need to make sure that they cover the cost of production. However, beyond that, things will get more complicated. Video game companies want as much profit as possible, but they need to set realistic expectations or they’re not going to get the returns that they want.

The video games that are being sold for relatively large prices now have to compete with video games that are completely free. If those video games aren’t completely free, than they will usually be free initially. People will just have to pay in order to advance through the different levels. This sort of thing can make the pricing structure for video games even more difficult.

It means that certain games will essentially vary in price themselves, since people might pay more or less for an individual game based on how much they would like to advance within it. Trying to set a price for new features within a game can be really difficult in its own right, and a lot of people will struggle with that aspect of the pricing structure.

These sorts of features are relatively new, so video game companies don’t have a lot of history to draw on when they are trying to establish this part of the pricing structure. The new world of free or partly free mobile games is changing things quickly. Being able to join Royal Vegas and play free video slot machines is very different from playing some of the video games of old.

There is a school of thought that a video game should be treated like a service rather than a good. Video games can be copied infinitely. Some people think that this should affect the pricing structure. There are video game developers who more or less request money from potential fans before the games are developed, embracing the crowdfunding model that has helped a lot of people succeed in the new world. Of course, even then, people don’t really know how much money they are going to need or what they should expect from fans.